Organisers described themselves as the antidote to big-money lobbyists who wield so much influence. They talked about helping powerless people join forces to demand better schools and safer streets, often by working through churches.

'If people in office were doing their jobs, perhaps we wouldn't need community organisers,' said Mr John Baumann, executive director of PICO National Network, whose name derives from 'people improving communities through organising.'

'I don't like seeing the really hard work that goes on in really poor communities being demeaned by cheap politicians,' said Mr Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. 'Community organising is as American as democracy.'

'It believes that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.' Mr Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, has often talked about his three years as a community organiser in Chicago where he worked for the Developing Communities Project, which was created by a number of Chicago-area churches to help people in their communities.

Mr Obama uses his experience to demonstrate that he understands the problems of people losing their jobs and stuck in deteriorating neighbourhoods.

Republicans belittled his organising experience on Wednesday night.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani began summing up Obama's experience by noting he had worked as a community organiser.

'What?' he said, with a tone of disbelief. 'Maybe this is the first problem on the resume,' Mr Giuliani said.

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin touted her credentials as mayor of an Alaskan town. 'I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organiser, except that you have actual responsibilities,' she told the cheering crowd.

Several organising groups condemned the remarks.

Mr John Raskin, who works to make low-income housing available in Manhattan, quickly launched a Web site to respond. It attracted scores of responses on Thursday from organisers upset by the criticism.

'I just think it's adding insult to injury,' Mr Raskin said of the Republican comments. 'First, to create an economy that leaves out so many people and then to insult people who are trying to help.'

Organisers describe their work as identifying potential leaders in a community and then helping those people tackle local problems.

They research possible solutions, teach people how to figure out who can help and how to explain their concerns, then try to pressure the powerful into taking action.

Some organisations set up their own community groups, but most work with existing institutions, often churches.

Mr Baumann said their concerns might be as basic as getting rid of a drug house or having more police patrol their neighborhood.

Organisers also help set up job-training programmes, push for better parks and streets, and press for school improvements.

'I basically think of it as very conservative. People are concerned about their families and ... the vehicle for that is through organising,' Mr Baumann said.

'The importance of assisting people improve their own lives - it's quite a responsibility.' Mr Dave Beckwith, executive director of the Needmor Fund in Toledo, Ohio, said it would be wrong to assume community organisers and the people they help are all liberals.

They include both Democrats and Republicans and their work can involve clashing with politicians from both parties, he said.

'This is an election that I understand to be about the middle,'Mr Beckwith said. 'People active in community life and who have aspirations for their communities - it seems to me that anyone would want to speak to those people respectfully.'-- AP